


The End

by kingess



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Character Death, Drabbles, Gen, M/M, Microfic, Modern AU, non-related drabbles, or several microfics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 04:31:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3161312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingess/pseuds/kingess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Courfeyrac never thought it would end like this.</p>
<p>(Or nine drabbles on things ending in ways Courfeyrac did not expect)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eirenical (chibi1723)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi1723/gifts).



> So...this is probably the most unconventional fic I've done, so here's a little context. A week or so back, [eirenical](eirenical.tumblr.com) challenged me to write a five sentence fic based off the sentence "Courfeyrac never thought it would end this way" and when I told her I'd had a half dozen different ideas for it, she told me she wanted to read them all...so here we are. Nine unrelated mini-fics. I tried to keep them all around five sentences, but obviously that didn't work in all cases.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

* * *

 

Courfeyrac never thought it would end this way.

He never thought it would end with a clear blue sky filled with smoke and the acrid smell of gun powder. He never thought it would end being pinned to the ground, half from pain and half from the broken furniture of the barricade, watching as his friends, his brothers fell beside him. He never thought it would end being unable to do anything more than cry out when he watched Combeferre get stabbed through with no less than three bayonets. He never thought it would end with him flat on his back as his blood slowly watered the ground beneath him.

Maybe that blood would fuel revolutions to come, because he was beginning to lose faith with this one.

* * *

 

Courfeyrac never thought it would end this way.

He had always been the best at pingpong, having been raised on yearly pingpong tournaments every New Years’ Eve at his grandparents’ house with his assortment of aunts and uncles. Courfeyrac made Forrest Gump look like a novice when it came to pingpong (well, that might have been a slight exaggeration, but only slight) and he’d entered his new high school’s pingpong tournament because he knew he’d win and that would impress people and then he’d be able to make some new friends. He wasn’t supposed to lose—especially not this badly.

This wasn’t supposed to end in defeat.

He glared at the blond across the table from him and his fiery eyes and his stupid red t-shirt and the way he had so many people coming up to congratulate him, and then Courfeyrac sighed. Just because he’d lost didn’t mean he couldn’t still make friends with another pingpong enthusiast. He squared his shoulders, summoned a smile, and went to introduce himself to the victor.

* * *

 

Courfeyrac never thought it would end this way.

He’d only started coming to this stupid aerobics class because the instructor was hot. (He was fairly certain that’s why most of the women came as well.) But after weeks of being able to keep pace with the hot physical trainer who taught the class (Combeferre, his name was Combeferre and Courfeyrac was fairly certain he’d never met anyone so perfect), Courfeyrac gotten cocky, over-confident. And then he’d been too busy making damned flirty eyes at the instructor instead of watching where he was putting his feet and then he’d rolled his ankle and now he was rolling on the floor trying not to cry because his ankle hurt so damn bad.

He must look like an idiot.

Combeferre bent over him. “May I take a look?” he asked.

Courfeyrac was so embarrassed he couldn’t look at him, but he nodded and then he tried not to whimper when gentle fingers probed at his ankle. He was never going to be able to show his face here again. His chances with Combeferre the hot physical trainer weren’t supposed to end like this.

“It might be broken,” Combeferre said. “It’s swelling too much already to be just a simple sprain. You’ll probably need an x-ray. I can give you a ride to urgent care?”

Courfeyrac gaped at Combeferre. Through the pain, his brain remembered that it wasn’t normal for instructors of random aerobics classes to offer to take their students to urgent care facilities across town. It wasn’t normal to be this concerned.

Despite the pain in his ankle and the tears in his eyes, Courfeyrac felt hope bloom. Maybe his chances weren’t ruined after all.

* * *

 

Courfeyrac never thought it would end this way.

The machines kept time in the hospital room and Courfeyrac blinked back tears and tried not to notice that the soft beeps and blips on the monitor were slowing down, growing fainter. Tried not to notice that Combeferre was slipping further and further away from him. He wanted to hunt down the drunk driver who’d done this to his precious Combeferre, wanted to run—forever and never stop—to hide from his sorrow, wanted to be anywhere but here watching as Combeferre’s body slowly failed him. But he wouldn’t leave, couldn’t leave. Combeferre was dying and Courfeyrac knew he was needed here.

Choking back sobs that threatened to swallow him whole, Courfeyrac scooted his chair closer to the bed and pressed his forehead to Combeferre’s cold hand, wanting to feel his boyfriend caress his face once last time.

* * *

 

Courfeyrac never thought it would end this way.

He never thought his brand new trousers would end with splatters of mud and blood and a great big rip in the knee.

These new trousers had been his own gift to himself. Most of his money these days went directly to Enjolras and their cause, or else to the pockets of various informants and snitches who needed to be persuaded to keep their mouths shut around the National Guard. It was all beginning to be a bit much—there was so much to do, so much injustice to right, so many odds to overcome—and he’d thought that perhaps new trousers and a nice waist coat would go along way to improve his mood, no matter that Enjolras might scoff and suggest his money be better spent elsewhere.

He didn’t expect for his new trousers to be ruined the first time he wore them, though. He knew they were beyond repair and perhaps it was foolish, but he was rather upset over the whole matter. But he smiled when he let himself into the back room at the Musain and was greeted by a rousing chorus from his dear friends despite his appearance. Perhaps his trousers were ruined, but all was not lost. He’d let his friends buoy his spirits for a change—and perhaps Bahorel, a connoisseur of fine clothes himself, might know of a place where he could find a replacement for his dearly departed trousers.

* * *

 

Courfeyrac never thought it would end this way.

Cookies. It shouldn’t have been this hard to bake cookies.

But he was covered in flour, the kitchen was covered in flour, and his four-year-old—precious though she normally was—was covered in flour.

He wiped off his face with the sleeve of his shirt (which didn’t help much) and did the same for his daughter.

“We made a mess,” she said.

Technically, the mess had been hers as she was the one who dumped the entire bag of flour into the mixer instead of waiting for him to help her measure out the proper amount. But she was four and allowances needed to be made.

“Yes, we did,” he said.

“Papa’s not going to like this,” she said.

No, Combeferre wouldn’t like this because he was a little fastidious about things being cleaned properly and that made everything worse because Courfeyrac had only been trying to bake his husband cookies with their daughter as a surprise for Combeferre.

Well, at least that part hadn’t been ruined. Combeferre would certainly be surprised…

Courfeyrac laughed and shook his head. It was a little mess. They could clean it up before Combeferre got home from work. But first he scooped up his flour-covered daughter and grabbed his phone. A mess this large required documentation.

* * *

 

Courfeyrac never thought it would end this way.

Despite all of Courfeyrac’s optimism and convictions about the good that existed in the world, the protest had been doomed from the start. The police had been there from the start and the moment Enjolras had stepped forward to confront a vicious heckler who’d been harassing them the entire time, the police had intervened and somehow…somehow it turned into a nightmare of police brutality. Courfeyrac had tried to film some of it, only to have his phone and his hand broken in the process. And now he was alone, tucked away in a tiny holding cell while Enjolras and Combeferre made their one phone call. He always had so much hope, but all alone in this cold cell and pain radiating from his broken hand, he began to wonder if they’d be able to change anything at all.

* * *

 

Courfeyrac never thought it would end this way.

When he’d seen the cute man with glasses on what appeared to be a blind date with a pretty frat boy, Courfeyrac had been excited. He loved waiting tables for blind dates. If the date went well, he got to watch a romance bloom before his eyes. If the date went poorly, he had a good story to swap with the cooks back in the kitchen.

But then it turned out that the pretty frat boy was a raging asshole—if not to his date than at least to Courfeyrac. His beer had too much ice so he sent it back. The replacement was too warm, so he sent it back. He sent back his date’s drink for good measure because he assumed it wouldn’t be up to snuff. The appetizers weren’t cooked right, and then weren’t arranged properly on the plate. Courfeyrac had to exchange the asshole’s cutlerly six fucking times because the forks always had water spots on them. He yelled at Courfeyrac when he brought him the wrong kind of salad dressing and he yelled again when his steak was too pink in the middle (never mind that he ordered it medium rare and that’s what medium rare meant). He’d sent the steak back to the kitchen and Courfeyrac had a hard time resisting the urge to spit into the asshole’s food when he brought out a replacement. And at dessert, when Courfeyrac had to inform the man that they were actually didn’t serve that limited-time-only dessert from three months ago anymore, Courfeyrac had been yelled at again.

Apparently, that was the last straw for the asshole because when Courfeyrac went back to the table with the chocolate cake they did still serve, the asshole was gone and the cute man with the glasses sat alone.

“My date decided to skip out on the bill,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “But, well, obviously I’m going to pay and I wanted to apologize. I tried to get him to stop harassing you, but he wouldn’t listen. I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve any of that, and if I’d known he was going to be such asshat, I wouldn’t have agreed to this date.”

Courfeyrac set the piece of cake down in front of the man. “Thanks,” he said. “I hope he wasn’t that rude to you, at least.”

“I didn’t really give him the chance,” he said, then he hesitated. “I’d like to make this up to you,” he said eventually.

Courfeyrac blinked at him. “What?”

“If…if it’s all right with you, I’d like to take you out—for dessert or for coffee or something—to make this up to you,” he said. “Maybe tonight after you get off work?”

Blind dates weren’t supposed to end with one half of the couple asking the waiter out for another date for later that evening, but Courfeyrac wasn’t going to complain. Instead, he smiled. “I’d like that.”

* * *

 

Courfeyrac never thought it would end this way.

All those years ago, when he shyly asked Combeferre out on a date—an actual date, not just an evening of lounging around in each other’s apartments watching Netflix and then falling asleep on top of each other—he never thought it would end with them standing across from each other at the altar. He never thought that first date would end here, with tears in his eyes as Combeferre slipped a ring onto his finger and the silly grin on Combeferre’s face when he returned the favor. He never thought that date would lead to vows and a life they’d build together.

But when Combeferre pulled him close to kiss him before all of their friends and all of their family, Courfeyrac realized this wasn’t the end at all.

This was just the beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to come say hi over on [tumblr](kingesstropolis.tumblr.com)!


End file.
